Wow, where do I start? We are on a Truck called Pumba with a Guide called Becs (a good Tasmanian Girl). We are currently in Rwanda before we head out to Tanzania and we've been having a great time.
Uganda was cool, we visited an island of orphened Chimps and then spent 3 days in Jinja where we scared ourselves senseless white water rafting on the Nile. It was totally random that 6 weeks ago we were on the Nile river in Egypt, about 6000km north!
The rafting was grade 5 rapids (thats big baddies!) and my boat flipped twice, its not terribly pleseant being thrown out in the middle of a grade 5 rapid and although you you do pop up pretty quickly it seems like and absolute eternity while you are stuck down there. I made Simon payt an extortianate amount for the DVD of our trip because I wanted to proove to anyone who will watch that I truly am a hero for doing that!
Uganda has this very dark red soil and it gets in EVERYWHERE! It stains your clothes and dyes your skin (it was getting quite difficult to tell if you were tanned or grubby!) its still all throuhg my ears and and I don't think my toes will be a normal colour for a long time!
Simon and I went for a couple of runs here and you attract a lot of attention with kids running with you or stopping and waving yelling "Hello Mzunga" (White person).
We are now in Rwanda whre we visited the Genocide museum (scary the recent history of this country) and headed up to the Volcanic region, near Congo, where we have been trekking the gorilla's.
What and seriously cool day! We opted for a longer trek and terkked the Sousa group of Gorilla's, this is the largest group in Rwanda with 38 gorilla's so there was plenty to see. After about 2 hours of walking (about an hour of bush-crashing through some pretty thick jungle and stinging nettels - ouch!) we found our Gorilla's. It was awesome to see them up close (they were usually within 1-2 metres of you) and just watch them eating their breakfasts, they seemned quite happy to watch us watch them. They have several guards who stay with the groups all day to protect them from the poachers and also radio down to our guide to let him know where they are and which direction they are heading. The guards are lovely, they talk to the gorilla's ("arrrhmmmm" "hmmmmmm" "arrhmmm") and they all seem very comfortable with eachother.
The Silverbacks (head of the groups) were huge, these guys could have picked me up in one hand. And they made a fair bit of noise (a bit of chest beating) when we first arrived but once the guards talked to them for a while they were OK. There was even a 5 week old baby gorilla, it was so amazing and I have loads of photos.
So, tomorrow we head into Tanzania (a de-tour since we are not allowed into Kenya) and towards the Serengetti Game Park.
Stay tuned for more news ......
PS: Sorry about spelling, I'm so not goign to try correct it on this dodgy French keyboard and really slow internet!
